The present invention relates to a dental lathe having a portable grinding tool for use with animals, and particularly, with equines.
The dental pieces of many animals must be treated or corrected odontologically in order to prevent or alleviate a number of nutritional and other relates problems.
In practice, sharp edges and spikes commonly develop in the dental pieces of horses, mainly in the upper maxillary. Sharp edges develop at the mount faces thereof at the level of the molars, due to uneven abrasion of the mastication surfaces and to the anatomic shaping of the maxillaries. Since the upper maxillary is wider than the lower maxillary, this causes the formation of these sharp edges. Furthermore, because the teeth of this animal species grow in a generally slanted direction, the top teeth growing down and outwards and the bottom teeth up and inwards, such sharp edges or spikes also project sidewardly. These sharp edges may injure the mucosa of the cheeks.
Regarding the lower maxillary, edges develop at the tongue face of the molars, which may injure the tongue mucosa. These sharp edges and spikes prevent normal mastication by the animal, which, besides originating nutritional problems, also adversely affect the performance of otherwise active animals due to the pain caused thereby.
The above mentioned nutritional problems also impair the efficiency of animals in sport activities, e.g. polo ponies, as well as in stallions and mares involved in reproduction.
These dental alterations, which are usual in equines, result in terminal pathologies, such as "colics" of different types which occur by defective mastication, and a poor disintegration of the foods to be ingested. Congenital or acquired pathologies, such as "stepped" teeth, "sheared" teeth, or other types of uneven growth of teeth, may also be found.